


how lovely it is to live

by Quillium



Series: Dr. Wayne AU [4]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Cass-Centric, Dr. Wayne AU, Gen, Happy Ending, I would like to emphasize that here is no death here and I'm a fluff writer, discussion of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25335769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillium/pseuds/Quillium
Summary: Cass flips on her tummy and immediately regrets it. The kitchen counter is hard. The edge is sticking into her chest. Her ribs want mercy.Cass resists the cat-instinct-urge to bat at Jason's bowl of batter and push it right over the edge of the kitchen counter. Because she is not a cat, she is a person. Unfortunately.OR: Cassandra Wayne, and figuring out life.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Bruce Wayne
Series: Dr. Wayne AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1715896
Comments: 25
Kudos: 118





	how lovely it is to live

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldkirk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldkirk/gifts).



> Before we start, have you slept a healthy (not "normal"... HEALTHY) amount? Have we drank water? Eaten something solid? Check off those three before reading!
> 
> Alright, time for author babble (feel free to skip). I know that Cass talks a lot here, and isn't as focused on body language--that's because in my Dr. Wayne AU, I figured we'd go with a sort of there aren't any real like superheroes or supervillains, so 1) her dad probably didn't go through measures that were as extreme and 2) there's no JLA, so how would we pull in J'onn to fix Cass's brain? The answer I came up with was... let's just make it so that Cass did learn to talk from the start, but maybe she wasn't allowed to talk as much, but either way she was still a child soldier which is, I think, going to make Cass how she is whether she can talk or not. After I finished I felt a bit upset because I felt that I mangled Cass's character but she was the one that I felt, fit the story best, and even if its execution is a bit sloppy, I do love the story I wrote, and I hope that y'all can as well.

Cass, standing before the railings of the bridge, gripping the boy’s forearms and saying, “Stay with me,” and wishing that she could work with words the way the rest of her family could, wishing she could say the right things and pull the boy back to the right side, to her side, away from the edge and the water and— “Please.”

“If you let me go,” the boy says, “It won’t be your fault. I don’t want you to blame yourself.”

Cass is trying not to cry. She is trying not to panic.

Cass is not very good at Not Feeling. But she is good at Hiding Feelings. Or at least—she was. Now she seems to be out of practice, because she knows that she must sound and look as desperate as she feels.

“I know,” she says, trying to pull back the memories from Before Family that she has, in her head, tries to pull back what she felt and tried to suppress for ages, tries to remember because a life might count on her remembering right— “I know you’re tired. And everything hurts. And it's scary. And—bad. But things will be good and happy and—you give time, and good will come.”

The boy looks down, at his feet, barely on the edge of the bridge. At her hands, at his elbows. At the water, below them.

“I know it feels like forever,” Cass thinks of ticking clocks going too slow and too fast at the same time, thinks of wanting to live and wanting to die, thinks of a blue sky and a helpless sense of being untethered— “But it’s not. One day you will get your happy ending, one day you’ll get a home and good food and people you love who love you and—everything you’ve never even imagined you’d have.”

“I know,” he’s still looking at the water and Cass’s chest is tight and she’s trying to remember how to  _ breathe _ and— “I’m just so tired of waiting.”

“I was lost for—“ Cass scrambles, trying to remember right, time was always hard for her, numbers and names and years slipped so easily— “Three years. I wanted to die for three years. But I have a family, now, and friends and—things are better. So I promise you can have it, too.”

“Oh, that’s—that’s great. Really. I’m so happy you have that—“

“Not about me.”

“Right. Right. Sorry, I just—I’ve had this for six years. And I’m just so tired of—I don’t even remember who I am, without all this. Being tired all the time.”

“You are not who you were before.” Cass does not shrug but she does something close enough without letting go. “We are always something new, that we weren’t before. That is not a bad thing, it is—good. And who you will become—who you are right now—it is good. You’re good.”

A gentle smile. “I’m not. You can only say that because you don’t know me.”

“Not knowing is okay. But you are staying for me—because you do not want me to see or feel bad if you fall. That is kind.”

“It’s just—wanting to die without a guilty conscience. Selfish.”

“It’s kind.”

“Okay. If you say so. Hey, you’re—you’re doing great. I hope you know that.”

“You are, too. Proud of you.”

Hysterical laughter, nervous and high pitched. “I’m about to jump off a bridge, I don’t think I’m doing that great.”

“Sleep the night,” Cass whispers, “Sleep for the night and when you wake up, see if you can wait a little longer.”

He looks at her, in the eyes, and then says, softly. “Okay. Will you help me over the edge?”

Cass’s head buzzes. Her legs feel like jelly. “Yes,” she says, quick, relieved, heart hammering in her chest. “Yes. Thank you.”

He laughs as she pulls him over, and says, “I’ll sleep the night.”

“Call—” Cass fumbles to pull out her phone. “Call me in the morning. Take—take my number?”

“Okay.”

She puts her number in his phone—rose gold, with a transparent Sailor Moon phone cover—and smiles at him without really thinking. Her head is buzzing with relief.

“Cass. You have a pretty name.”

“Thank you.” Cass beams.

He smiles back, a small, tentative thing.

“Do you want me to walk you home?”

“Oh, it’s—it’s okay. I think—I think I’ll call my sister. She has a car and she lives in the area so—“

“I’ll wait with you.” Cass decides.

He watches her with something like amusement and sits down. “Do you like movies?” He asks as they wait.

“Some,” Cass answers, which is probably an answer that most anyone can give. “You have a favourite?” 

Words are hard, but she needs them right now. She’s saying more right now than she has in a month but she needs—she needs to talk to him. To say  _ it’s okay _ or  _ I am here _ —something like that, which comforts the way that her family does when she needs it.

She needs to talk, even if she’s not very good at it.

“Iron Giant, maybe. I used to watch it with my dad, before—anyways. Have you watched it?”

Cass scrunches up her nose and shakes her head. “If it’s good, I’ll watch it with my family for movie night.”

He cracks a grin at her, “Movie night?”

“With my family,” she says proudly, “Every Friday night.”

Sometimes Bruce doesn’t make it, working at the hospital. But he always tries to make it—the rest of them, too. Cass lives with the certainty that there will always be someone there—at least one person. She is proud of this family she has, that she has been given—proud and grateful.

“That sounds cool. My mom and sister are busy but—maybe one day.”

“Do you love them?”

“Do—yeah. They’re good to me.”

“Then why leave them?”

He looks at her like he’s trying to measure her, like he’s finding the words for something even he doesn’t fully understand, and he says, “I knew it was selfish. I knew that. But I was just—so tired. It was so much. And I just—couldn’t bear it anymore. Even though I knew it would hurt them.”

Cass understands, a bit. Because she knew that Bruce loved her, when he took her in, and she still had been—numb. Detached. She had still felt like a wooden doll, and had wanted nothing more than to escape that.

She asks if he wants a hug. He says yes. So she wraps him in her arms and whispers, “I’m proud of you,” and tries to find better words, more words, words that reassure and sit perfectly.

She cannot find them.

By the way he holds her back, burying his face in her neck, she thinks it must be enough, her small, lacking words.

__

Cass is brushing her teeth a week later, standing on her toes and squinting at her expression in the mirror, toothpaste foaming at the corners of her lips, and thinks to herself,  _ boring _ .

The time it takes to brush teeth is long enough to be boring, but too short to do anything. 

She knows Dick watches his videos, but she doesn’t like the idea of mixing her phone (which belongs in her study room) and brushing teeth (which belongs in the bathroom). If she does that, who knows what else she’ll do with her phone.

So she brushes her teeth.

Which is  _ boring _ .

And then, suddenly, like  _ zap! _ Cass thinks that she must be very lucky, that the thing she complains about is how boring it is to brush her teeth.

It is such a good thing, she thinks.

Because brushing teeth is good for her! And it means she ate yummy food. But she is complaining!

And then suddenly, swelling in her chest as she spits out her toothpaste and rinses her mouth with water, she thinks  _ I’m alive to complain about brushing teeth _ .

And then she thinks, bright,  _ I’ve lived for so long! _

Because Cass never—Cass never thought she would live this long. She always thought she would be dead before now—killed, by someone else or maybe even herself, but she is alive and she  _ likes _ being alive and she is brushing her teeth like it’s nothing and—

Life is  _ good _ .

Life is super good!

And Cass is giddy, now, in the overwhelming joy that’s swelling in her chest, singing  _ I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive _ .

She wants to hold onto this feeling forever. That—everything she worries about, that everything she was scared of, that it’s  _ okay _ , because she’s  _ alive _ and more than that, she  _ likes _ being alive! She likes her life, her family, the food they eat, the bed she sleeps in, the clothing she wears—she likes it all.

Cass loves everything she has. She loves the life she has. She has more goodness and happiness in her life than she’d ever dreamed of before and—

Cass puts in her retainers and spins around after washing her toothbrush and the cup she used for rinsing water.

She is bright and happy and light and—

Everything is  _ good _ . Dizzyingly, beautifully,  _ good _ .

__

Cass’s period has come and she hates everything.

The word is a terrible, mean, place and she wants someone to hit her over the head so she passes out. She doesn’t mind getting needles, even, if they will make her fall asleep because  _ everything hurts _ and everything is bad and—

And still, silly enough, strange enough, Cass is feeling so happy. Because she is alive to feel this pain. Because she’s here and she screamed Bruce’s name and he came and she’s bent over on the toilet trying not to vomit but Bruce is sitting in front of her, letting her smush her screaming face into his legs, running his fingers through her hair and whispering  _ it’s okay, Cassie, sweetheart, it’s okay _ even though she knows it hurts him, to see her like this.

When she’s all screamed out and the pain is lessened more, she’s just breathing, eyes closed, forehead pressed into Bruce’s Hello Kitty pyjama pants (which she knows he only wears when Dick isn’t around because they were a gift from Dick) and she thinks  _ I’m so lucky to have this _ .

Because before, if she had never met Bruce, if she had never joined this family, she might have been alone, in pain, and then what would even be the point of screaming if nobody would come to comfort you—

But she has this. She has—Bruce. And this family. And a clean bathroom and a comfy bed (that she’ll get to once she thinks she has enough energy to move) and—

“Thank you,” she says, because you shouldn’t say  _ sorry _ for letting someone love you, she knows, even though she wants to say sorry because she knows it hurts Bruce, seeing her in pain, more than himself hurting would, and she’s selfish enough to call for him anyways because when she’s in pain, she doesn’t want to be alone.

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” Bruce’s voice is low, gravelly, not like Batman’s but more just—a tired father.

A good father. The best father. Cass says as much out loud.

Bruce laughs softly and says, “And you’re the best daughter. I’m proud of you.”

“Mm,” Cass closes her eyes and says, because she’s bursting to share it and because she wants someone to know and because she wants Bruce to understand, hopes he’ll understand, because he somehow always does: “I’m grateful to be alive. And I’m happy because I’m alive.”

“That’s good,” Bruce says.

And now the words pour out of her, words she would never give, usually, but something about this—her, in pain, past midnight and Bruce, holding her, gently, like she’s something precious and easy to love—pulls them out of her.

“Yes. I didn’t think I would live this long and before everything hurt and felt bad and I—and my dream was to live peacefully. Without being scared or worried and knowing that—even if I lost everything, I would be okay. I would be able to keep going and living. And now I have it and now—and now I’m alive and I like living—I like everything about it. I like it so much. And every moment I’m so happy because I’m alive—because I have this. I feel like this bright feeling will never go away.”

Bruce says, “I’m happy for you.” And then Bruce says, “Do you still—do you still, ever, feel that pain?”

“No,” Cass says, “I’m happy, now.”

“Good,” Bruce says, as though dazed. And then, again, “Good.”

Cass doesn’t know if Bruce understands. She’s always felt behind others, like she was stupid and slow but with this joy at being alive she thinks—she has everything anyone could have every wished for. This is what some people search for, their whole lives, without knowing it, she thinks. And she has it. This happiness that will never fade, so long as she lives.

“I love you,” she says, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Cassie,” Bruce says, fingers going through her hair, gentle and comforting.

__

Cass, on the kitchen island, months after her conversation with Bruce, staring at the ceiling as Jason makes pancake batter and thinking.

Thinking, thinking, trying to find words. The right ones. The ones that fit nice—the ones that make people understand her.

Words are hard. Movement is easier but movement is—too small, for this. Small? Not small but—limited. Like trying to do a summersault with only a torso and head.

Cass is bad at metaphors. She is bad with words. She wishes people could look at her and understand her.

Then she immediately thinks  _ that’s a bad thought _ . Because if people could understand her immediately, as soon as she saw her, she thinks that things would be difficult to deal with, probably. Too much knowledge is not good.

Things are perfect.

If only she had the words.

Cass flips on her tummy and immediately regrets it. The kitchen counter is  _ hard _ . The edge is sticking into her chest. Her ribs want mercy.

“Jason,” she says.

“Yes, darling?” Jason is still looking at his batter.

Cass resists the cat-instinct-urge to bat at the bowl of batter and push it right over the edge of the kitchen counter. Because she is not a cat, she is a  _ person _ .

A smart person. Who does not do cat-things.

Probably.

It’s a work-in-progress. Cass is  _ great _ at working on progress.

Probably.

“You’re going to be a really cool person when you grow up.” Cass wiggles off the counter until it digs into her stomach and then thinks  _ abort mission abort mission _ and uses her hands to push herself off in a way that doesn’t involve the counter being mean to her stomach.

Jason pretends to be offended. “Do you mean that I’m not cool right now?”

“You’re a nerd right now.” Cass, being a good little sister, feels obligated to explain to him.

“Are you implying that I’m not going to be a nerd in the future?”

“You will always be a nerd.” Cass does not elaborate.

Jason looks torn between being mystified and being offended.

Being someone with a good sense of organization, he decides to just keep feeling both.

“Okay, kiddo.” He settles on amusement.

Cass nods, like everything makes sense now. She hops over to him, having succeeded beautifully in wriggling off the kitchen counter, and wraps her arms over his shoulders. “I want the first batch.”

“The first batch never tastes as good.” Jason pulls out the pan and the butter, turns the heat to high, and Cass drags behind him like a slug. “Ugh, you’re heavy.”

“You love me!”

“Still heavy. Some days I think you have more muscle than  _ Bruce _ .”

Cass laughs and straightens a bit to watch over Jason’s shoulder as he pours the batter onto a melted slice of butter.

“You want to try flipping?”

“Maybe the next one,” Cass hums, wiggles her toes a bit. 

She pushes her chin into Jason’s shoulder, watches the batter start to bubble. Jason flips the pancake and the other side is golden-brown.

_ Perfect _ , Cass thinks, smiling.

Life is perfect, and she is so grateful to be here, now, living, breathing.

This moment in time was worth everything she’s been through.

“I want to eat this one.” She tells Jason.

“Fine, fine,” Jason pokes her stomach, “Are you hungry? Did you eat enough earlier?”

Cass puffs out her cheeks. “I ate.”

“Ate what?”

“...Made Good bars.”

“That’s not food.”

Cass pouts, “Saving my stomach for pancakes.”

He flicks her forehead.

“Mean!”

“Eat more!”

“Stingy.”

“I’m giving you the first pancake!”

“Ah… best brother!”

“Brat.”

They burst into laughter at the same time, the pancake is done, and Cass begins eating with her fingers as Jason pours the batter to make the second pancake.

_ Perfect _ .

__

Cass, frozen, silently watching Damian cry after a call from his mother.

Bruce is at work. Jay is visiting Dick in Bludhaven. Tim is finally sleeping.

Cass is standing at the top of the stairs, wishing desperately that she weren’t so  _ useless _ .

Thinking  _ what good was all my strength, if I’m useless where I most want to be useful _ .

Drowning, drowning, in her inadequacy.

What would Bruce do?

Bruce is tired. He is always, always tired. But, also, he is always, always open. Always loving and kind and there and--

Cass aches with a need to  _ fix _ . 

To make things  _ right _ . 

To take the things that made Bruce good and loving and kind and dump them into Talia al Ghul, until she is no longer cold-harsh-angry and becomes soft-kind-loving.

The way that Damian needs. 

The way that her little brother  _ deserves _ .

Cass cannot fix this. Cass cannot fix things, she is not--

_ What would Bruce do? _

Cass walks down the stairs. She doesn’t remember what she means for it to be, only knows that she doesn’t even register moving towards him, until she is by Damian’s side, her arms around him.

Damian is not aggressive, but he pushes her away and says  _ no _ , over and over, like he’s forgotten the meaning of the word.

Cass wants the right things to say. The right reassurances to make. She wants to say everything that Damian needs to hear, she wants to know the right thing to do, she--

She keeps holding him, and eventually, he holds her back, small hands flat against her back, face buried in her shoulder.

He is so small, her little brother.

“Why did she give birth to me, if she didn’t even want me?”

She holds him tighter. She wishes she could give him flowers and thunderstorms and ice cream and a good book and say  _ she doesn’t matter, you are alive, living is so good, it’s so beautiful, anyone who hurts you is nothing-- _ but Cass can’t. 

She doesn’t know  _ how _ .

Words are so hard.

She wishes he could understand, this love for him that swells in her chest, that the whole family feels towards him, wishes he could know that his mother would love him if she had an ounce of sense and it is not his fault--

Cass is drowning in her inadequacies.

But such things are okay. She has a family, now, to cover her flaws, and even if they cannot physically take over, she has learned much from watching them.

“I’m happy to have the best little brother,” Cass says. 

It’s not an answer. It’s not the best response. But Damian relaxes, sniffles a bit more, and says  _ thank you _ as though she has given him a great gift of sorts.

_ I want you _ , Cass meant to say.

And though, perhaps, she didn’t quite say it right, she thinks that her little brother understands, all the same.

__

Steph, painting her toes, perched on the edge of Cass’s bed and the nail polish dripping as she watches Cass stretch.

“The floor,” Cass mourns, watching the dark wood turn pastel pink. “My wood.”

Steph closes her mouth and promises hastily: “I’ll scrape it off later.”

“You better.” Cass agrees.

“Is that a threat or just you teasing me?”

Cass grins, “A threat.”

“You’re teasing me,” Steph pouts.

“Easy to tease,” Cass shrugs, biting back laughter.

Steph scrunches up her nose at Cass and turns her face to the window. “It’s raining.”

Cass tilts her head, closes her eyes, and listens. “Little rain.”

“Of course you can tell by sound alone.”

“I’m cool like that,” Cass agrees proudly.

Steph laughs. “And so humble, too.”

“Very humble.”

Steph laughs even louder.

Cass stretches her neck. 

Steph presses her face against her knees and watches the rain outside. “I’m grateful,” she says, suddenly, “to have met you, Cass.”

Cass glances at Steph as she moves into a lunge. Steph isn’t looking at her. She just said it--that she was grateful for Cass--as though it were such a small, insignificant thing. As though it were merely fact.

Cass feels her throat burn with how much she loves her family.

“I love you, too,” she says, because that’s what it means, in the end, right?

For each star in the sky, there is a different way to say  _ I love you _ .

Cass feels it hum in her chest  _ I love you, I love you, I love you _ and is restless with pride and thankfulness. This is her family, her precious people, and they are oh so wonderful.

She’s so  _ happy _ .

It makes her a little anxious, this happiness, this light, perfect feeling that everything in her world brings her joy, that everything around her makes her happy.

How will she bear it if she loses this bright, overwhelming joy? She wants to stay here forever, childishly, she doesn’t know if she could bear to lose this joy, now that she has it in her hands.

_ I love living. I love every moment of living. I love my family, I love my home, I love the food I eat _ \--

And everything brings her happiness, everything brings her joy, but doesn’t that mean that with each thing she loves, that’s one more precious thing that she can lose?

She asks Steph, because Cass knows that keeping such things to herself only results in misunderstanding and anxiety.

“Hm.” Steph closes her eyes. A little wrinkle appears on her forehead as she thinks.

“You’re cute.”

“Augh, Cass, I’m trying to think.”

Cass laughs a bit, but stretches in silence while Steph mulls things over. 

“Hm,” Steph says again. “But what else is there to do, beyond loving what you have? If you aren’t happy and don’t find happiness for yourself, then what’s the point of living? We weren’t made for misery.”

“I’m scared of losing everything and becoming miserable, though.”

“It will be okay.” Steph closes the bottle of nail polish. “Of course you’ll lose things, and you won’t always be able to live happily without a care. But you’ll always find the strength to walk forward, somehow, I think. So long as you live on, you can find and create a new happiness for yourself, and even if you can’t recover the things you lost--you’ll be okay, in the end.”

Cass presses her forehead into her knees. “I wish things were never hard.”

Steph leans over. Cass sits up and Steph kisses her forehead.

Cass aches. She wishes this moment could last forever. Everything she has--this kindness, this love, this easiness--is so precious to her.

Steph laughs quietly at Cass’s pout, and then asks, “What colour of nail polish do you want?”

“Yellow.”

“That’s a good choice.”

Cass’s life is perfect. She has everything she’s ever wanted.

And one day, she’ll lose a part of this perfection. But it’s okay, because she has what she has now, and she’ll have the strength to handle the future.

So she sticks out her hands and lets Steph paint her nails canary yellow.

She is happy. And she will be okay.

__

One year later, the call comes when she’s reading.

“I’m at the bridge where we met.”

“Sunset pretty?”

“Yeah.”

Cass hums. “I don’t pick up calls.”

He laughs. “Am I special, then?”

“Everyone is special.”

“If everyone is special, then nobody is.”

“Agree to disagree.” Cass closes the book and moves to the window. The sunset has only just arrived, gold and pink eating at the clouds.

“Sorry for calling--”

“No, you aren’t.”

More laughter. “But I just--wanted to say that I think it was a good thing, that I kept living.”

“Of course.” The pink clouds are making Cass think about cotton candy. She wonders if any of the cotton candy ice cream is left, or if Dick ate it all. “Treat me to ice cream on Saturday.”

“Cass, my job pays minimum wage.”

“Mean.”

“Your dad is a  _ millionaire _ .”

What’s that word, that starts with an s and means small things… “Semantics.”

Oh yeah. Cass is so smart.

Maybe Steph  _ is _ rubbing off on her.

“You treat me.”

“Fine.”

“You gave in too easily.”

“Hm.” Now she sounds like Bruce. “Are you happy, now?”

“Happy? Maybe not yet but--I’ll get there, some day.”

Cass starts walking to the kitchen. She wants ice cream. “Good.”

Dick finished off the cotton candy ice cream, but there’s still some vanilla, so she eats that instead.

They talk a bit more before hanging up, and Cass watches those weird videos that Steph sent her to watch while she finishes her ice cream.

Life is good.

**Author's Note:**

> And you finished reading this story! Hm, looks like time for you to drink another cup of water! If you ignored me and decided to stay up late despite needing to sleep, now that you're done, go to sleep. Don't even exit this page, just close your device and head to bed. For those of you who did finish the checklist and drank your water, you can find me on tumblr @quilliumwrites, where you can talk to me about my fics, the characters, certain scenes, whatever you want. Take care of yourselves.


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